Croatian
Language

Croatian
Language Chronology

Pronunciation
basics:

Č,
č-as the "ch" in "check

Ć,
ć-no English equivalent. Place the tip of the tongue behind the
lower front teeth and try to produce a "mixed sound" between the
"ch" of "check" and the "t" (actually "ty") of British English
"tune". As it were, a “soft” č.

DŽ,
dž-as the "j" in English "jar"

Đ,
đ-no English equivalent. Place the tip of the tongue behind the
lower front teeth and try to produce a "mixed sound" between the
"j" of "jar" and the "d" (actually "dy") of British English "duke".
A “soft” dž.

LJ,
lj-as the British English pronunciation of the "lli" in "million",
i.e., with a "clear 'l'" followed by a short "y"-sound

NJ,
nj-as the "ni" in "onion", i.e., an "n" followed by a short "y"-sound

1500-1300 B.C.E. -disintegration of Balto-Slavic family followed
by numerous languages changes characteristic for shape of
future Slavic languages. The basic features of this period
can be only approximately reconstructed by methods of comparative
historical linguistics.

9th
to 11th centuries: the dominance of Church Slavonic,
first literary language of all Slavs, based on a south Macedonian
dialect. In time, variants of Church Slavonic emerge (Croatian,
Russian, Czech, Serbian, Bulgarian), as a result of intrusion
of the vernacular. First Croatian script, Glagolitic, was
probably invented by missionaries from Thessalonica Cyril and
Methodius (ca. 850), whose disciples, expelled from Moravia (contemporary
Slovakia and Czech Republic), settled in Croatian lands. The originally
“round” form of Glagolitic script soon becomes angular- the distinct
feature of Croatian Glagolitic. Historicallly, the most important
monument of early Croatian literacy is the Baška tablet
(ca. 1100).

However, the luxurious and ornate representative texts of Croatian
Church Slavonic belong to the later era when they coexisted
with the Croatian vernacular literature. The most notable are
the Missal of Duke Novak from Lika region in northwestern
Croatia (1368), Evangel from Reims (1395, named after
the town of its final destination), Missal of Duke Hrvoje
from Bosnia and Split in Dalmatia (1404) and the first printed
book in Croatian language (1483). Great migrations following
the Ottoman invasion, the growing influence of Croatian or
Bosnian Cyrillic and, finally, the prevalence of Latin script
-both as the medium of western literature (sacral and secular)
and the dominant, although not standardized Croatian script-
all these factors spelled the doom of Glagolitic literacy. Croatian
Glagolitic scriptory tradition died out, mainly, in the 17th
century.

12th-15th centuries: the period of dialectal differentiation.
Croatian dialects are, roughly, divided in three groups named
after the dialectal word for interrogatory pronoun which is
in Latin «quid» or in English «what»: ča-Čakavian
(chakavian), što-Štokavian (shtokavian) and
kaj-Kajkavian (kaykavian). These dialects and
their subdialects have undergone further changes in next 5 centuries,
but the central characteristics were virtually fixed by the
17th century. Phonetic, phonological and morphological differences
between dialects vary from 4 to ca. 30 characteristic features,
as does mutual intelligibility between both dialects and subdialects.
Štokavian dialect was further divided into western branch (3
accents speech), spoken mainly by Croats, and eastern ( 2 accents
speech), spoken predominantly by Serbs. Kajkavian was spoken
in northwestern Croatia, Čakavian in western Croatia and Dalmatia
(littoral, islands and hinterland), and western Štokavian in
the northern Croatia/Slavonia, as well as in the greater
part of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the esternmost part of Bosnia
and Herzegovina was the area of eastern Štokavian dialect).

Another differentiating feature was the result of phonetic development
of Old Slavonic phoneme ě (jat). For instance,
Church Slavonic word for a child, děte, became in three
“jat reflexes”:

-dite
(i, hence Ikavian)

-dijete
(ije, hence Ijekavian)

-dete
(e, hence Ekavian)

These
features are most prominent in Štokavian dialect (što-i,
što-ije and što-e), but are present in other Croatian
dialects (ča-i, ča-ije, kaj-e). The most widespread Croatian
dialects, from 1400s on, have been Štokavian Ikavian and Ijekavian
(što-i and što-ije), but other dialects, especially
Čakavian (ča-i) and Kajkavian (kaj-e) played the
prominent role (Čakavian influence dimmed in 17th century, and
Kajkavian was consciously abandoned in 1830s by Illyrian
movement that completed Croatian language unification by
«officially» accepting neo-Štokavian dialect (a variant
of Štokavian originating from the Neretva river basin in Herzegovina
ca. 1500) as the basis of the Croatian standard language
since it was the speech of more than 70% of the Croats and the
dialect of the richest Croatian literature in past 350 years.
Neo-Štokavian differs from older variants of Štokavian by 4
accents speech and a few (3-6) morphological structural changes.)

To complicate the situation further, this was the period when
other scripts appeared and became influential on Croatian soil:
Cyrillic («Povaljska listina»/The Povlja lintel, 1184),
which soon adopted specific scriptory and morphological characteristics
that made it different from other (Serbian and Bulgarian) versions
of the Cyrillic, and Latin (ca. 1350). The Croatian (or
Bosnian, since it was dominant in medieval Bosnia-hence the name
«bosančica»/Bosnian script) Cyrillic was influential in
parts of central and south Dalmatia, as well as in Bosnia, where
it had been most widely used from 14th to 17th century; the Latin
script gained ground in Croatian regions with most vigorous economic
and cultural activity (Dalmatian littoral, northern Croatia) and
by 1500s it was evident it will prevail at the end.

During
16th and 17th centuries occurred many
processes that shaped the profile of future Croatian standard
language: the Ottoman invasion and permanent warfare, followed
by mass depopulation and migrations have had at least four
lasting consequences:

the area of Čakavian, the oldest Croatian dialect was
greatly narrowed. Although the Renaissance literature in Čakavian
vernacular achieved remarkable triumphs (epic and lyric poetry,
novel) in the 16th century (especially on islands
Hvar and Korčula and cities Split and Zadar, with key authors
like Marko Marulić,Hanibal Lucić and Petar
Zoranić), its demographic and cultural basis had soon
become exhausted and Čakavian lost the chance to become the
basis of Croatian national language.

Turkish
conquests have been followed by migrations of Vlachs- mainly
Slavicized shepherding paleo-Balkans populace from earlier
conquered areas in Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and Herzegovina.
The result was expansion of neo-Štokavian dialect in Ikavian
(što-i) and Ijekavian (što-ije) forms. The majority
of settlers later nationally identified according to the faith
they professed: the Eastern Orthodox Vlachs became Serbs and
Roman Catholics became Croats.

The
literature and lexicography in Kajkavian dialect appeared
on the scene, but the most influential and promising was the
literature in Čakavian-Kajkavian-Štokavian interdialect, based
in central Croatia and supported by powerful Croatian nobles
Zrinski and Frankopan (both writers themselves).
However, this extraordinary activity that produced at least
two major figures: polymath, forerunner of modern Croatian
national ideology and script reformer Pavao Ritter-Vitezović
and lexicographer IvanBelostenec (his
magnum opus, the 2,000 pages long Kajkavian-based interdialectal
dictionary “Gazophylacium” (ca. 1670) was published some 60
years after its completion) was cut short by execution of
Zrinski and Frankopan in Bečko Novo Mesto 1671,
after a kangaroo trial orchestrated by the Vienna court-leaving
Croatia literally decapitated for a time. The Kajkavian-based
interdialect later flourished in north-western Croatia (in
and around Zagreb), but was essentially confined to
a corner of Croatian language area and could not become transregional
Croatian koine.

Ivan
Belostenec: Gazophylacium, 1740

the
extraordinary flourishing and continuous influence of the
southern Croatian Renaissance literature in Dalmatia, with
centres in cities like Split, Zadar and Dubrovnik, or islands
Korčula and Hvar, laid the foundation for the idiom that was
to became the basis of Croatian standard language. At first,
it was written in Čakavian and Štokavian dialects
(with strong dialectal interference, so that many features
of Čakavian can be found in Štokavian and vice
versa), but soon, after the depopulation and economic and
cultural marginalization of other Dalmatian towns, the Dubrovnik
writers, who wrote in increasingly unidialectal Štokavian-Ijekavian,
remained alone on the scene. The key authors are poets Šiško
and Vladislav Menčetić, Dominko Zlatarić, numerous
poets from Ranjina's collection of sonnets and the
dramatist Marin Držić.

A
digital collection of poetry dating from the Renaissance to
the end of the 19th century

¦
What the Renaissance writers accomplished in the 16th
century had been further developed and refined in the 17th.
This period, sometimes called Baroque
Slavism was crucial in formation of literary idiom that
was to become Croatian standard
language: the 17th century witnessed luxuriance
in three fields that shaped modern Croatian:

?
The first one was represented by the linguistic
works of Jesuit
philologists Kašić and Mikalja: the first Croatian
grammar,
authored by Bartol Kašić under the title: “Institutionum
linguae illyricae libri duo”, appeared in Rome 1604.
Interestingly enough, the language of Jesuit Kašić's unpublished
(until 2000) translation of the Bible
(Old and New Testament, 1622-1636)
in the Croatian Štokavian-Ijekavian dialect (the ornate
style of the Dubrovnik
Renaissance literature) is as close to the contemporary standard
Croatian language (problems of orthography
apart) as are French of Montaigne's
“Essays” or King James Bible
English to their respective successors - modern standard languages.
The richness of Kašić's translation can be seen in the
vocabulary: while the original Old Testament consists of 8,674
Hebrew words, and New Testament of 5,624 Greek words, the vocabulary
of Kašić's Bible translation numbers near 20,000
words. However, Kašić's most influential book was “Ritual
Rimski”/The Roman Ritual, a liturgical compendium that had been
in use from 1640 to 1929 and has decisevely shaped the profile
of Croatian language; Mikalja's “Thesaurus linguae Illyricae”
was first respectable (25,000 Croatian entries) dictionary of
Croatian language mainly in Štokavian-Ijekavian idiom.

another
strong influence was the energetic literary activity of
Bosnian FranciscanMatija
Divković, whose Counter-Reformation
writings (popular tales from the Bible,
sermons and polemics) were widespread among Croats
both in Bosnia
and Herzegovina and Croatia
and played the crucial role in preserving and forging the
cultural and linguistic unity among Croatian common people
who lived in two empires: Ottoman and Habsburg.

Matija
Divković: Besjede/Orations, 1616

and, last but not least, the third strand was represented by
aesthetically refined poetry of Ivan Gundulić and Junije
Palmotić from Dubrovnik. Both writers explored stylistic
nuances and expanded Croatian vocabulary. During this period
(and frequently until 1850s) the ubiquitous name for Croatian
language was Illyrian (or “Slovinski”) because
Croats settled in the lands of Roman Illyricum and the Zeitgeist
preferred “classical” designations; also, not infrequently,
regional names (Bosnian, Dalmatian, Slavonian) had been used.This
"triple achievement" of Baroque
Slavism in first half of the 17th century laid the firm
foundation upon which later Illyrian movement (1830-1850)
completed the work of language standardization.

Ivan
Gundulić: Suze sina razmetnoga/Tears of the prodigal son, 1622

The
entire process described above can be best summarized in Croatian
linguist Dalibor Brozović's words: The Croatian language
has evolved towards its goal throughout its history. Glagolitic
and Cyrillic works were composed in the Latin script, but there
are no reverse cases. Kajkavian and Čakavian writers wrote in
Štokavian, but the reverse is unknown. The Štokavians who were
not neo-Štokavians accepted the neo-Štokavian basis, but not
the converse. The Ikavians wrote in Ijekavian, but not the other
way around. The natural result is Croatian standard language,
based on neo-Štokavian Ijekavian (što-ije) dialect and written
in the Latin script.

1700
to 1900

Expansion
of the Štokavian vernacular influence

Illyrian
movement, final scriptory reform and language unification

Through
the major part of the 18th century two seemingly contradictory
processes had been under way: envigoration of literary activity
in two Croatian dialects, Kajkavian (in the north-western
part of Croatia) and Štokavian (in the rest of Croatia and
in Bosnia); also, penetration of Štokavian influence on
Kajkavian writers and local idiom. However, political and
demographic factors again played the pivotal role: since
the major parts of contemporary Croatia (Slavonia and Dalmatia)
were liberated from Ottomans at the end of 17th century,
these areas, where Štokavian dialect predominated, became
centres of vigorous literary activity, mainly in the spirit
of dominant Enlightenment and nascent Sentimentalism. Two
enormously popular authors, a military officer from Slavonia

Matija
Relković and Dalmatian Fransciscan friar Andrija Kačić
Miošić, became a sort of cult writers in the 18th century:
their works, steeped in didacticism, folk wisdom and glorification
of heroic (frequently imaginary) epic past, although cannot
be, on aesthetic level, compared to best Croatian writing
in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, played crucial role
in the spread of neo-Štokavian dialect. They, along
with numerous other writers and lexicographers from Slavonia,
Dalmatia and Bosnia (although still under Turkish rule, Croats
in Bosnia and Herzegovina were ecclesiastically united with
their compatriots in Slavonia and Dalmatia in one Franciscan
province, Bosnia Argentina) set the scene for incipient «Illyrians»:
the Baroque Slavism had created ornate and expressive
idiom, but it was Kačić Miošić who, in his «Razgovor...»/»Discourse...»
produced the summa of Croatian folk mythologies, integrated
images of heroic, one might say Homeric past with the mundane
purpose of Christian propaganda and gave to the Croatian people
the first truly national book, unsurpassable bestseller that
crossed regional, dialectal and class boundaries.

The Illyrian movement, 1830-1850, centred in Croatia's
capital Zagreb (where Kajkavian dialect predominated)
and lead by Ljudevit Gaj, accomplished final cultural
unification of Croatian people. This movement, also called
Croatian national revival, was one among many similar
European movements in the «spring of nations» following
the period of Napoleonic wars. In the case of Croatian
revival, it was also the continuation of Ritter-Vitezović's
scriptory reform and ideological pan-Croatism and Kačić
Miošić's glorification of epic past, celebrated in verses
paradigmatic of neo-Štokavian idiom. Its results
in the field of language and linguistics can be summarized
thus: «Illyrians» had given the final form of Croatian Latin
script by adopting Czech and Polish diacritical marks and
inventing a few exclusively Croatian graphemes and, by opting
for the most widespread dialect among the Croats, Štokavian,
had unified all Croats in one Croatian literary koine.
Moreover, motivated by nuanced and far-sighted cultural
politics, Illyrian central figures (politician and philologist
Ljudevit Gaj, lexicographer, poet and politician
Ivan Mažuranić, writer and polymath Ivan Kukuljević
and philologist Vjekoslav Babukić) chose što-ije
dialect as the basis of Croatiankoine,
instead of što-i, the native language-dialect of
the majority of Croats. The reasons for such a decision
were:

the
literature written in što-ije dialect, from 1500s
on, has been the richest among Croatian regional literatures
(and in many ways «older» than other, recently more developed
«antagonist» literatures like German: of course, no Croatian
poet of the time could «compete» with Goethe or Novalis)
and could be used as the strong shield against German and
Hungarian language «imperialism»- in the climate of Romanticism,
the claims of «antiquity» of a national literature were
particularly important. The «Illyrians» have, by adopting
and further developing što-ije dialect and by elevating
it to the status of Croatian official language (so far as
circumstances in Habsburg Empire permitted) effectively
halted Germanization (and other possible de-Croatization
programs).

The
«Illyrians» worked in the climate of romantic Pan-Slavism
that viewed all South Slavic languages as offshoots of one,
«Illyrian language». Since Serbs, the geographically
closest «Illyrian tribe», spoke što-e and što-ije
dialects, and Croats što-i and što-ije
dialects, the only possible «intersection» was što-ije
dialect. However, the history's final verdict was ironic:
Serbs, who didn't have a cultural tradition in što-ije
dialect abandoned it for standard language based on
more popular and widespread što-e dialect. On the
other hand, post-medieval Croatian cultural and linguistic
identity, formed in the 16th and 17th centuries, definitely
crystallized around što-ije based standard language.
«Illyrian» and South Slavic illusions of linguistic unity
of South Slavs had not passed the reality check.

The
Illyrian movement and its successor, the Zagreb philological
school, have been particularly successful in creating
the corpus of Croatian terminology that covered virtually
all areas of modern civilization. In short- they extended
and systematized the purist tendencies already present
in the by then more than 400 years old Croatian vernacular
literature and lexicography. This was especially visible
in two fundamental works: Ivan Mažuranić's and Josip
Užarević's:"German-Croatian dictionary" from 1842 and
Bogoslav Šulek's "German-Croatian-Italian dictionary
of scientific terminology", 1875. These works, particularly
Šulek's, systematized (ie., collected from older
dictionaries), invented and coined Croatian terminology
for the 19th century jurisprudence, military schools, exact
and social sciences, as well as numerous other fields (technology
and commodities of urban civilization). So, the “Illyrians”
assimilated and expanded central Croatian linguistic traits:
strong loyalty and respect towards Croatian literary and
philological heritage combined with linguistic purism and
word-coinage. The only field where “Illyrians” partially
failed was orthography: they, contrary to the tradition
of mainly phonemic Croatian orthography (from 1200s on),
which is best suited for a “transparent” language like Croatian
(or Latin, Spanish or Italian) adopted, in the spirit
of pan-Slavism, predominantly morphonological orthography
(better suited for “intransparent” languages like Czech
or Polish). But, this was a minor setback (later corrected
by orthographic manual authored by Ivan Broz in 1892)
compared to their triumphs in the vital areas of scriptory
unification, definite language standardization based on
što-ije dialect and continuation and extension of
dominant tendencies embedded in Croatian literary and linguistic
tradition.

The
19th century language development overlapped with the upheavals
that befell Serbian language. It was Vuk Stefanović Karadžić,
an energetic and resourceful Serbian language and culture
reformer, whose scriptory and orthographic stylization of
Serbian Cyrillic script and reliance on folk idiom made
a radical break with the past; until his activity in the
first half of the 19th century, Serbs had been using Serbian
variant of Church Slavonic and hybrid Russian-Slavonic language.
His “Serbian Dictionary”, published in Vienna 1818 (along
with the appended grammar), was the single most significant
work of Serbian literary culture that shaped the profile
of Serbian language (and, the first Serbian dictionary and
grammar until then). Karadžić chose što-ije dialect
as the basis for emerging Serbian standard language (although
virtually all works (covering the fields of literature,
lexicography and philology) written in što-ije dialect
in 350 years preceding his reforms belonged to the Croatian
culture and were, logically, considered by eminent
contemporary Serbian scholars as something alien and non-Serb)
because, as a folklorist, he was impressed by the folk poetry
idiom (Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian Muslim) expressed in
što-ije dialect. Although the majority of Karadžić's
reforms triumphed among Serbs after a struggle that lasted
more than 5 decades- his choice of što-ije dialect
as the basis for standard Serbian was largely abandoned.
A small part of Serbs still uses što-ije based Serbian
literary language, but the “variant” based on što-e
is vastly predominant among Serbs. Karadžić's work was the
revolution for Serbs; yet his influence on Croatian language
was only one of the reforms, mostly in some aspects of grammar
and orthography since the majority of his innovations had
been present in Croatian literary and linguistic corpora
for centuries.

But-
now has begun the process that entangled Croats and Serbs
in the unstable situation of two nations sharing virtually
the same language according to genetic linguistics- but
having frequently divergent political aims. Due to the fact
that both languages shared the common basis of South Slavic
neo-Štokavian dialect, they interfered in many normative
issues, particularly in orthography, phonetics, syntax and
semantics. On one hand, there was Serbian language,
based upon rustic folk idiom and, as it were, “untainted”
by history in the time of its “official” birth in the mid-1800s.
On the other side stood Croatian language, moulded
by more than 4 centuries old Croatian vernacular literature
in all three dialects- a language steeped in history; also,
a language formally shaped by linguists and writers very
conscious of deceptions of the past and wary of idealization
of purely folklore-based standard language. The situation
of two nations with similar and mutually intelligible, but
different languages (not unlike Bulgarian-Macedonian,
Hindi-Urdu, Malay-Bahasa Indonesian, Czech-Slovak
“pairs”) frequently led to polemics where language was used
as a political tool in ethno-territorial disputes. However,
in the 19th century will for cooperation dominated
over language squabbles: following the incentive of Austrian
bureaucracy which preferred some kind of "unified" Croatian
and Serbian languages for purely practical administrative
reasons, Slovene philologist Franc Miklošič (the
Habsburg crown man of confidence) initiated a meeting of
two Serbian philologists (including Vuk Karadžić)
and writers together with five Croatian "men of letters"
(Ivan Kukuljević and Ivan Mažuranić among
them). This, so-called "Vienna agreement" in 1850,
on the basic features of unified "Croatian or Serbian"
or "Serbo-Croatian" language was signed by all eight
participants (including Miklošič), but did not have any
effect in practice. Essentially, a more "unified" standard
appeared at the end of 19th century with
Croatian sympathizers of Vuk Karadžić, so called
"Croatian Vukovians", who wrote first modern (from
the vantage point of dominating neo-grammarian linguistic
school) grammars, orthographies and dictionaries of language
they called "Croatian or Serbian" (Serbs preferred
Serbo-Croatian). The key works were: the crucial
orthographic manual based on phonemic principle (in accordance
with Renaissance and Baroque Croatian writing, but differing
from mainly morphonological, Czech language-based orthography
preferred by “Illyrians”) by Ivan Broz (1892), monumental
grammar authored by preeminent fin de siecle Croatian linguist
Tomislav Maretić (1899) and dictionary by Broz
and Iveković (1901). These books temporarily fixed
the elastic (grammatically, syntactically, lexically) standard
of this hybrid language. However, the linguistic prescriptions
of this school in many areas ignored multicentenary Croatian
literary and philological tradition (mainly in the fields
of vocabulary and linguistic purism), so only those rules
that have had roots in the literary canon were accepted;
others have been ignored by modernist avant guarde writers
and “officially” abandoned by later linguists influenced
by French structuralism of de Saussure and Prague school
of Jakobson and Trubetzkoy. Needless to say, the colloquial
language remained generally unaffected by such nuances.

1900
to the present

Language
and politics

Birth
and death of Yugoslav supra-national program

But,
due to the fact that these two languages have had a radically
different past of almost four hundred years and only a few
decades of moderately peaceful convergence- it was inevitable
that they should eventually diverge. The Croatian good will
quickly evaporated in Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia
(1918-1941), when political pressures were applied to forge
them into one, Serbian-based language- all in the spirit
of supra-national Yugoslav ideology which had had roots
in the 19th century idealization of South Slavic «unity»,
but has mutated into a variant of Greater Serbian expansionist
program. This kind of «language planning», ie. forced Serbianization
of language in Croatia and Bosnia, was especially ruthless
in 1920s and 1930s, when Serbian language characteristics
(lexical, syntactical, orthographical and morphological)
had been officially prescribed for Croatian textbooks and
general communication. Also, this artificial "unification"
into one, Serbo-Croatian language was preferred by
neo-grammarian Croatian linguists (the most notable example
was influential philologist and translator Tomislav Maretić).
The recipe was simple: if a term is described by two words
in Croatian (a neologism and Greek/Latin Europeanism) and
one word in Serbian (Europeanism)- the "choice" was to suppress
Croatian neologism and "promote" Europeanism. For instance,
"geography" is "geografija" in Serbian, and "zemljopis"
and "geografija" in Croatian. The policy was to try
to establish "geografija" as the norm and to eliminate "zemljopis".
However, this school was virtually extinct by late 1920s
and since then leading Croatian linguists (Petar Skok,
Stjepan Ivšić and Petar Guberina) have been
unanimous in re-affirmation of Croatian purist tradition.
The situation somewhat eased in the eve of World War 2,
but with the capitulation of Yugoslavia and creation of
Nazi-Fascist puppet «Independent State of Croatia» (1941-1945)
came another, this time hardly predictable and extremely
grotesque attack on standard Croatian: totalitarian dictatorship
of Ante
Pavelić pushed natural Croatian purist tendencies
to ludicrous extremes and tried to reimpose older morphonological
orthography preceding Broz's prescriptions from 1892.
But, Croatian linguists and writers were strongly opposed
to this travesty of “language planning”- in the same way
they rejected pro-Serbian forced unification in monarchist
Yugoslavia (1918-1941). Not surprisingly, no Croatian
dictionaries or Croatian
grammars had been published during this period.

While during monarchist Yugoslavia
"Serbo-Croatian" unification was motivated mainly by Greater
Serbia policy, in the Communist period (1945 to 1990)
it was the by-product of Communist
centralism and "internationalism". Whatever the intentions,
the result was the same: the suppression of basic features
that differ Croatian language from Serbian language-from
orthography to vocabulary. No Croatian
dictionaries (apart from historical "Croatian or Serbian",
conceived in the 19th century) appeared until 1985,
when Communist centralism was well in the process of decay.
In Communist Yugoslavia, Serbian
language and terminology were "official" in a few areas:
the military, diplomacy, Federal Yugoslav institutions (various
institutes and research centres), state media and jurisprudence
at Yugoslav level; also, the language in Bosnia
and Herzegovina was gradually Serbianized in all levels
of educational system and the republic's administration.
Serbian linguistic imperialism was encouraged by the Communist
Party-State, which had replaced the Western concept of Nation-State
in the Communist countries or the Eastern Byzantine concept
of the Church-State with its Messianic politico-religious
Orthodoxy. Notwithstanding the declaration of intent of
AVNOJ (The Antifascist Council for the National Liberation
of Yugoslavia) in 1944, which proclaimed the equality of
all languages of Yugoslavia (Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian
and Macedonian)-everything had, in practice, been geared
towards the supremacy of the Serbian language. This was
done under the pretext of "mutual enrichment" and "togetherness",
hoping that the transient phase of relatively peaceful life
among peoples in Yugoslavia would eventually give way to
one of fusion into the supra-national, essentially paradoxical
"Yugoslav" nation and provide a firmer basis for Serbianization
to be stepped up. However- this "supra-national engineering"
was doomed from the outset: the nations that formed ephemeral
Yugoslav state were formed long before its incipience and
all unification pressures only poisoned and exacerbaced
inter-ethnic/national relations.

After
World War II, Yugoslavia was established as a federation.
In the 1950s, a hundred years after the Vienna Agreement
whose aim was to establish the Serbo-Croatian language,
the differences between the Croatian and Serbian literary
languages had not lessened. They were the result of several
contrasting factors

Croatian
vs. Serbian literary tradition

Latin
vs. Cyrillic script

Ijekavian
variant of Štokavian as the basis for the Croatian literary
language vs. Ekavian variant of Štokavian as
the basis for the Serbian literary language

Broz/Boranić's
orthography for the Croats vs. Belić's orthography for the
Serbs

The
single most important effort by ruling Yugoslav Communist elite
to erase the "differences" between two languages and in practice
impose Serbian Ekavian language, written in Latin script, as the
"official" language of Yugoslavia is the so called Novi Sad
Agreement. Twenty five Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin philologists
came together in 1954 to sign the Novi Sad Agreement (named after
the town of this event). A common Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian
orthography was compiled in an atmosphere of state repression
and fear. There were 18 Serbs and 7 Croats in Novi Sad. The «Agreement»
was seen by the Croats as a defeat for the Croatian cultural heritage.
According to the eminent Croatian linguist Ljudevit Jonke,
it was imposed on the Croats. The conclusions were formulated
according to goals which had been set in advance, and discussion
had no role whatsoever. In more than a decade to follow the principles
of Novi Sad Agreement were put into practice.

A
collective Croatian reaction against such de facto Serbian imposition
erupted on 15th March 1967. On that day, nineteen Croatian scholarly
institutions and cultural organizations dealing with language
and literature (Croatian Universities and Academy),
including foremost Croatian writers and linguists (Miroslav
Krleža, Radoslav Katičić, Dalibor Brozović and Tomislav
Ladan among them) issued the "Declaration Concerning the
Name and the Status of the Croatian Literary Language". In
the Declaration, they asked for amendment to the Constitution
expressing two claims:

the equality not of three but of four literary languages,
Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian,
and consequently, the publication of all federal laws and
other federal acts in four instead of three languages

the use of the Croatian standard language in schools and all
mass communication media pertaining to the Republic of Croatia.
The Declaration accused the federal authorities in Belgrade
of imposing Serbian as the official state language and downgrading
Croatian to the level of a local dialect.

Notwithstanding
the fact that "Declaration" was vociferously condemned
by Yugoslav Communist authorities as an outburst of "Croatian
nationalism"-Serbo-Croatian forced unification was essentially
halted and the uneasy status quo remained until the end of Communism.
The sterility of Yugoslav ideology and its detrimental effects
on linguistic culture can be best exemplified by scarcity of
Croatian dictionaries, grammars and other works that had
appeared from 1920 to 1980- and the marginalization or prohibition
of those works (especially studies in sociolinguistics and phonology,
orthographic manuals and grammars) that were written from the
vantage point of modern linguistic theories. The Serbo-Croatian
«unity» could be preserved only by reliance on dated philological
schools that belonged properly to the 19th century. Also, when
compared to earlier periods- both quantity and quality of Croatian
language works officially allowed by the regime heavily lagged
behind those published in the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries.

In the decade between the death of Yugoslav dictator Tito
(1980) and the final collapse of Communism and Yugoslavia
(1990/1991), major works that manifested irrepressibility
of Croatian linguistic culture had appeared. The studies of
Brozović, Katičić and Babić that had
been circulating among specialists or printed in the obscure
philological publications in the 60s and 70s (frequently condemned
and suppressed by Communist authorities) have finally, in
the climate of dissolving authoritarianism, been published
in the broad daylight. This was formal «divorce» of Croatian
language from Serbian (and, strictly linguistically speaking,
death of Serbo-Croatian). The works, based on modern
fields and theories (structuralist linguistics and phonology,
comparative-historical linguistics and lexicology, transformational
grammar and areal linguistics) revised or discarded older
«language histories», restored the continuity of Croatian
language by definitely reintegrating and asserting specific
Croatian language characteristics (phonetic, morphological,
syntactic and lexical) that had been constantly suppressed
in both Yugoslav states and finally gave modern linguistic
description and prescription of Croatian language. Among
many monographs and serious studies, one could point out to
works issued by Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, particularly
Katičić's «Syntax» and Babić's «Word-formation».

After the collapse of Communism and the birth of Croatian
independence (1991), situation with regard to the Croatian
language has become stabilized. Finally freed from political
pressures and de-Croatization impositions, Croatian linguists
expanded the work on various ambitious programs and intensified
their studies on current dominant areas of linguistics: mathematical
and corpus linguistics, textology, psycholinguistics, language
acquisition and historical lexicography. From 1991
numerous representative Croatian linguistic works were published,
among them four voluminous monolingual dictionaries of contemporary
Croatian, various specialized dictionaries and normative manuals
(the most representative being the issue of Institute for
Croatian Language and Linguistics). For a curious bystander,
probably the most noticeable language feature in Croatian
society was re-Croatization of Croatian language in all areas,
from phonetics to semantics- and most evidently in everyday
vocabulary. Some observers with Yugoslav affinities deplored
such a course of events. But, having in mind the vocal silence
of such “multiculturalist” proponents of Serbo-Croatian
when Croatian orthographies were literally burnt in auto-da-fes
(1971), one can only conclude with regard to the death of
this “language”: qualis vita, et mors ita !